The Ur-Guru pointed me to a January 23rd post on Engadget announcing IBM’s development of a 35-terabyte magnetic tape. That’s impressively huge, all right, but the first thing that crossed my mind was: tape is a linear medium. How long is it going to take to find and restore any particular file stored on a tape that large?

Okay, so they’re not really longer, just denser, but seriously—how does this address all the age-old problems with tape? It may remain a good option for large enterprises, especially if they’re configured for it already, but it’s way too much fuss and trouble for the average SOHO user.

Related posts:

1. FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 1-28-05: Is Tape History?
2. Tape and the Independent Professional: FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 2-4-05
3. Tape Wars: "I'm not dead yet!"
4. FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 7-2-04: Backup Links & Tape Backup
5. More alternatives to tape

Tags: Engadget, IBM

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 10:28 am and is filed under Tape Backup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.